Towards an optimal therapy strategy for myogenous TMD, physiotherapy compared with occlusal splint therapy in an RCT with therapy-and-patient-specific treatment durations

Table 3 Post-treatment TDC values in the long-term

	Physiotherapy	Splint therapy	P-value and significance of difference
All patients:
TDC at LM [mean (SD), n]	−0.512 (0.339), 37	−0.575 (0.361), 35	0.446 NS^†
Number of items contributing to TDC at LM [mean (SD), n]	14.2 (6.6), 37	15.7 (8.3), 35	0.407 NS^†
Patients with STx:
TDC at LM [mean (SD), n]	−0.807 (0.127), 19	−0.820 (0.161), 21	0.808 NS^‡
Number of items contributing to TDC at LM [mean (SD), n]	12.2 (5.9), 19	15.6 (9.2), 21	0.152 NS^§
Patients with UTx:
TDC at LM [mean (SD), n]	−0.200 (0.161), 18	−0.208 (0.244), 14	0.906 NS^‡
Number of items contributing to TDC at LM [mean (SD), n]	16.3 (6.8), 18	15.7 (7.0), 14	0.832 NS^§

TDC at LM, last measurement of treatment outcome in the long-term. STx and UTx, successful and unsuccessful treatment respectively. ^†Student’s t-test for unpaired observations. NS, non-significance. ^‡one-way ANOVA for the factor TDC between the various patient groups with different therapies and treatment outcomes. The factor TDC was significant (p < 0.0001), indicating TDC-values which were smaller for patients with STx (more negative TDC-values indicating more improvement) than for patients with UTx. The Bonferroni’s multiple comparison tests were non-significant between both therapies, for STx and UTx respectively (p-values indicated). ^§one-way ANOVA for the factor number of items contributing to TDC at LM which was non-significant (p = 0.328)

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